


Theoretical Dream

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Paint The Sky With Stars [35]
Category: Night World - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Witches, Crossover, Episode Tag, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 10:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7310920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, any(/any), exhaustion."</p><p>Rodney McKay taught at a junior college during The Last Man. POV of one of his students.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theoretical Dream

Dr. McKay was exhausted all the time. Sylvia sat at the back of the lecture hall and studied the shadows around his eyes, the slump of his shoulders. She noticed the way his insults slowly lost fire and then vanished altogether. When other students said stupid things, he just stared at them blankly, then barreled on as if they hadn’t spoken. Once or twice Sylvia had deliberately said stupid things just to get a rise out of him - because he had the best insults, her favorite was _Fumbles McStupid_ \- but he hadn’t responded at all.  
  
Sylvia did some research. Dr. McKay had an incredible resume up to a point. Then he started working for the United States Air Force, and he went silent in academia, so maybe it made sense that now he was teaching at a dinky little junior college. But then she looked up some of his papers and published articles, and she realized it made zero sense that he was teaching physics 101 at a junior college in Colorado Springs.  
  
Except he was in Colorado Springs, where the USAF had some kind of research outpost, the outpost Dr. McKay had worked at before. Before joining up with the USAF, Dr. McKay had done ground-breaking research into sustainable fusion, interdimensional bridges, wormholes, and generating exotic particles. Sylvia was pretty sure that he was teaching at a junior college just to keep himself alive while he worked on something amazing again. Because he was a certified genius. He had a PhD in mechanical engineering as well as physics, and he’d built a non-working model of a nuclear bomb when he was thirteen.  
  
Sylvia liked physics because the universe fascinated her. She wanted to know what made reality, what made the universe tick. And she was pretty sure Dr. McKay could tell her.  
  
She stopped by his office one day for office hours - which he barely kept, just enough to not get fired - and found him nodding off over a notebook. It was full of equations that were beyond Sylvia. What intrigued her more than the equations was the diagram - a sun, something emitting from the sun, and some kind of tunnel.  
  
And a drawing of a man, the barest hint of his profile - sharp features, slender neck, pointy ears, spiky hair.  
  
“Dr. McKay?”  
  
He snapped awake, fixed his gaze on her. “Yes?”  
  
“I’m Sylvia Ramirez, in your Tuesday-Thursday 101 lecture.”  
  
Dr. McKay flipped his notebook shut. “Miss Ramirez, how may I assist you?”  
  
“Actually,” Sylvia said, “I’m here to offer my assistance.”  
  
He blinked at her. “With what?”  
  
“With whatever it is you’re working on.”  
  
“I don’t know what you mean.”  
  
For a genius, he was a terrible liar.  
  
“You haven’t had a real night’s sleep in months,” Sylvia said. “You’re hitting burn-out. I need to learn physics here so I can transfer to the school of my dreams, and if you burn out, they’ll replace you with someone stupid, and my dream will be ruined. I’m offering my services as - whatever. Coffee-slinger. Human calculator. Whatever you need.”  
  
Dr. McKay eyed her warily. “What’s in it for you, besides this theoretical dream of yours?”  
  
He was so tired. She could break him down.  
  
“Whatever you discover,” she said. “I want in on it. Even if it’s just a footnote as your lab assistant. I want in.”  
  
“It’s classified,” Dr. McKay snapped. “Get out.”  
  
“Think about it,” Sylvia said before she left.  
  
She was persistent. Every day she saw him, she asked if he was all right, if he was sleeping right, if there was anything she could do to make his life easier.  
  
On a Saturday, she showed up on his doorstep with fresh Starbucks.  
  
He answered the door still in pajamas, hair disheveled, ink stains on his cheek from where he’d fallen asleep on his own equations.  
  
“I just want to help,” she said.  
  
“Just to be clear,” he said as he led her into his office, “you’re not my type.”  
  
“What is your type?”  
  
“Beautiful, brilliant, and wrongly deemed KIA.”  
  
Sylvia studied the equations on the whiteboard. “Wrongly?”  
  
“Yes, wrongly. And I’m going to get him back.”

Him. The man with the spiky hair and pointy ears.  
  
“What do you need me to do?”  
  
“Go make more coffee.” He crumpled his already-empty Starbucks cup.  
  
Sylvia found the kitchen on her own. She knew McKay liked it fancy, and he had a fancy coffee machine alongside a fancy espresso machine. His kitchen cupboards were full of canned food and instant meals. She was surprised he didn’t just have piles and piles of MREs. When the coffee was done brewing, she made up two mugs, added cream and sugar, and carried them back into the study.  
  
Dr. McKay was slumped over at his desk, asleep.  
  
Sylvia set the mug on the desk out of his reach so he wouldn’t knock it over if he woke suddenly, and she studied the equations he was working on.  
  
In sleep, he looked younger. More peaceful. Almost...happy. Sylvia thought he might have been smiling.   
  
And she thought she heard him say, “John.”


End file.
